Near Nicholas, the tornado had stopped and several people had sought his protection and rushed to be behind him, creating a small crowd.
Looking around, Nicholas spotted several faces he was familiar with among the crowd of people around him, Lucius Malfoy and his family, Arthur Weasley and his family, and several other purebloods, even the famous Harry Potter and the madman being hunted until recently, Sirius Black.
Nicholas had revealed his identity along with Prenelle to quell the panicking mass of people who had begun running around in all directions.
But Nicholas was slightly wary of what had occurred.
In front of Nicholas were the bodies of various Death Eaters who were caught up in his tornado, they were piled upon each other like gunny bags. But what made him approach the situation with caution were the Death Eaters who were standing beyond the bodies of their companions.
This group had taken all the half-bloods and muggle-borns hostage.
The hostages were kneeling on the ground and their mouths were sewed shut with magical threads that burnt them if they even intended to make a sound while their limbs were immobilised because of ropes knotted around their bodies.
A thin slit opened up in the space around Nicholas which he looked at with calm eyes because he could feel the spirituality of the creature beyond.
'Loki sent a letter? Has he figured something out?…'
From the slit a parchment flew out and Nicholas grabbed it and began to read.
"There's a barrier surrounding the place, no one goes in or out. It also casts an illusion to prevent anyone outside from knowing exactly what is going on inside." Loki delivered the bad news first and then moved on to the good news.
"But I informed a friend of mine using his spirit messenger. So the ministry should already know what's going on."
"I also put everyone at the entrance of the camp to sleep for the next fifteen minutes so that there wouldn't be a stampede as everyone tried rushing towards the exit."
Nicholas nodded and went back to looking at the Death Eaters in front of him who were using hostages to bring the fight to a stalemate.
"Can't you help them Mr. Flamel?" A voice Nicholas recognised came from Arthur Weasley spoke.
Prenelle answered in his stead, "They've planted rune chains on them to set them on fire should Nick act."
"Can't you just diffuse the runes before they activate?" Arthur asked and everyone around them stayed silent, paying attention to Nicholas's answer.
"It is not that I am incapable." Nicholas shook his head. "I just don't know if they have any more cards to play, like the few of them who have cursed their captors with something that is particularly tricky to deal with. I could do it if I had enough time, but I can't risk their lives."
Everyone remained silent, ruminating on Nicholas's words as one of the death eaters stepped forward and spoke, "I advise you to give up. Let us perform our jobs and we'll leave all of you alone. We only care for the mudbloods. Stand with us and you'll be reward-"
"Don't listen to the madman! He's just trying to divide us amongst ourselves!!" Arthur shouted through the crowd.
"And why should we listen to your words? Don't you already know? No one goes in or out of the barrier. That means the ministry won't come here to help us." Another voice said.
The crowd parted and Arthur saw the other man who had just spoken come into view.
'Lucius Malfoy.' everyone recognised.
"Do you want to damn innocent people to death Malfoy!?" Arthur said with seething hatred in his tone.
"No. But I'm trying to save as many lives I ca-"
"And how do you think they'll keep true to their words!? They've already maimed so many!? What's a few more to them!?" Mr. Weasley shouted.
"And how do you propose we fight them? Do you have a better way to deal with them than Mr. Flamel?" Lucius asked with a damning smile and after Mr. Weasley went quiet for a few seconds he spoke, "Thought so."
Loki in the meantime was thinking about the runes he'd seen around the camp.
The wall was built to mimic a wall of spirituality, to isolate a region from everywhere else so that nothing on either side of the wall would disturb each other.
'How is the damn illusion working?'
'Am I being stupid or is there another pathway that is as good at casting illusions as the Error and Fool pathways?'
'Or is it a spell of some sort?'
Loki frowned but since he couldn't figure out that right now he shook his head and changed his line of thought.
'If there's a wall all around the camp, does that mean all this was planned with the help of people in the ministry?'
'But even if the wall was planned much earlier, how did they power it up?'
'Something like this would need a lot of spirituality to create.'
As soon as Loki came to this point, he frowned.
'Did they use a creature like the basilisk Salazar created to cast it?'
Rubbing his ring and thumb finger Loki activated spirit vision to examine everything.
From his spot on the top of the tent, Loki scanned around the camp to check everything carefully.
As he eventually came across the spot where Nicholas was his eyes strained.
'The Death Eaters stopped Nicholas?'
'No, he seems to be as lively as ever. But then why isn't he fighting them? And why are half the death eaters kneeling?'
'Are they hostages? Did they take hostages to force him to stop? But what kind of hostage situation would stop him? His speed is probably fast enough to kill them all at the same time by splitting their heads off. '
'Unless the Death Eaters did something to the hostages which would leave them at the gates of death should he act…but…is he really that weak? I don't know…but isn't he a literal angel? And Prenelle? Why is she so quiet too?'
Loki turned his attention back to the hostages and tried examining them in detail to see if there was anything he could figure out.
But although the hostages were all terribly worried, they looked perfectly fine in Loki's spirit vision otherwise.
Loki tried viewing everyone's souls to see if he could figure something out, but his spirituality warned him against it.
His palms turned sweaty and his mind became clouded but he took a deep breath and calmed himself.
'It's alright. Nicholas will be able to solve the situation on his own. He's an Angel, I'm sure whatever he's doing will work out.'
Loki turned his sights away and began to scan throughout the camp for any special object or item that contained a lot of spirituality, something that could've been used to start the barrier.
There were several mystical objects on all the people around Loki but he ignored them since he couldn't tell them apart or even understand what they could do without looking at the runes on them.
There were also several people around the area in the burning tents that had been buried under the rubble, but Loki turned his gaze away from them for now since he wanted to try and figure out what was going on before taking any action.
'Damn it!'
But what irritated Loki was that there wasn't a sign of any creature or person that would have immense spirituality like the basilisk in Loki's vision, apart from Nicholas.
'Is it hiding from us? No, if it was hiding I'm pretty sure Nicholas and Prenelle would have found it by now using their spirit vision.'
Loki's frown only deepened.
Loki scoured around to see if he could spot anything hidden from his view but gave up after a few wasted minutes.
'If Nicolas and Prenelle haven't been able to spot something like this, I need to figure out a different angle to all this…'
'What do the Death Eaters want to do in the first place? Kill the hostages? But wouldn't that give Nicholas free reign over their lives? How do they expect to fight Nicholas after they've killed all their hostages?'
As if realising Loki's thoughts, Nicholas spoke, cutting across the petty squabble that the adults were having.
"You may do whatever you want."
Everyone looked at him, either with shock like Arthur or with giddiness like Lucius.
And all the death eaters perked up when they heard Nicholas's words.
"I hadn't expected you to choose their side Mr. Flamel!!! How could you!!? After Dumbledore has worked with you!! He's the beacon of light!" Arthur exclaimed.
He cut through the crowd, walking right up to Nicholas and spoke again tugging on his shoulder, "Has your immortality killed your humanity? Have you embraced the darkness that one must stay away from on the path of a Bey-"
With a simple swipe of his wand, Nicholas caused Arthur to fly back and fall in front of his family.
Arthur glared at Nicholas and along with him Harry and the entire Weasly family looked at him with anger enough to burn a hole into him if it could.
But Nicholas ignored them.
With a smile, Nicholas turned towards the group of death eaters with hostages, "Please, carry on. We don't have any qualms."
Most looked at Nicholas with a little shock, they never expected someone who was touted as Dumbledore's closest teacher and friend to be like this.
Only Prenelle seemed to realise Nicholas was angry because although he was smiling, it never reached his eyes.
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A/N : We crossed a hundred powerstones today!!! Expect an extra chapter tomorrow!!! Thank you for reading!!! Let's goo!!!!
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